


Amor Novo

by SlytherinHowl



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst with a Happy Ending, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Fireworks, New Year's Eve, Rio de Janeiro
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-29
Updated: 2019-12-29
Packaged: 2021-02-26 06:22:24
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,122
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21799060
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SlytherinHowl/pseuds/SlytherinHowl
Summary: Among the steady beating of three hearts, the fireworks and the sea, Daenerys is born anew.
Relationships: Grey Worm & Daenerys Targaryen, Jorah Mormont & Daenerys Targaryen, Jorah Mormont/Daenerys Targaryen, Missandei & Daenerys Targaryen
Comments: 26
Kudos: 43
Collections: A song of frosted bear kisses and dragon roasted chestnuts





	Amor Novo

**Author's Note:**

> Here is my entry to the wonderful collection. I'm happy to participate, yet I believe this contribution is, well... _different_ from most other cheery Christmassy fics, I just hope it's a good different. I've been harbouring a love/hate relationship with this fic for a while now, so I'd be really happy to hear what you think in the comments!

Daenerys has always been a stranger. An _other_. Someone who didn’t fit. She’s known as much since her earlier years, since running away with Viserys from one place to the next, never quite belonging anywhere. The lonely child yearned for a home to call hers, for friends she could count on, for a painless existence. The lonely adult soon learnt the world wasn’t as kind as to let the child’s dreams take place, yet she held on to them. Sometimes it was as if she had the dreams of a thousand children inside of her. She began working for the UN with hopes of seeing the world change, of seeing other children hold on tight to their dreams, to keep holding onto her own, yet… the war never stops. The wheel never breaks.

It was hard to hold on to her dreams in her peacekeeping mission under the Rwandan sun, when so many children and their dreams were slaughtered, but the harshness of that environment brought the dragon out in Daenerys. She fought tooth and nail to stop the chaos she found herself in, even though she was both foreign and a girl who many deemed unfit for such a place and time. She had Jorah then, her steadfast companion, he who took bullets for her and believed in her dreams too. She met Grey and Missandei there and many other people who journeyed with her towards peace. Daenerys thought nothing could put out her fire, but then her dreams of old pulled her away from her calling and the people whom she had sworn to protect.

She dreamt of the England Viserys had told her of. The glamour, the elegance, the hills, and the brick houses. She longed for the power he claimed was theirs, the old family name waiting to be restored to its full glory. Viserys was weak and selfish, he was not the Targaryens of old, but Daenerys was forged in fire and blood. She knew she could do better than him, be better than him and show the world greatness born out of compassion and not simply wealth. She then took the plunge, the leap of faith; Daenerys gave all of herself to shield those people just as she had shielded men and women in other places before, and in return, she hoped the people of that strange yet familiar island would be there to hold her, that the dark curls of the broody Northern man would be her safe haven. They weren’t. The winter was bitter. Every last piece of the place was bitter to her. She had no love there. No love, nothing to translate love. No _Amor_. Everything was a maddening Stark grey, howling at her and clipping down her wings. She does not think of it, must not think of it.

She would have fallen but she was caught and held in her fall. She had held on to the people who stopped her from hitting the ground, she'd held them as the war raged around her. Jorah, Grey and Missandei, the last to still talk to her with words that had _Amor_ in them, but she could not see it, she didn't want to see it, it wasn't English to her and she wasn't English to it.

Daenerys didn't want to celebrate Christmas nor to come to Rio for New Year's Eve, but they had dragged her here anyway, to what hopes, she didn't know. She is here now, breathing in the sunny sea breeze. So many things surround her, the assault on her senses is enough to bring her to her knees, but it's beautiful and kneeling doesn't seem so bad anymore. 

There’s more mess and more insects here, more bronze-skinned people, more noise and more colour. Pale yellows go well with the deep blue of the ocean and the soft greys and whites of the buildings, it’s soothing. Daenerys doesn’t miss the browns, the darker greys and especially the reds of times gone past. She knows there’s red here, but not in Copacabana. The red is hidden away, seeping through the hills of the city and staining them. She knows how powerful red stains are. A part of her feels her own colour leave her as she thinks about it, but there’s hardly anything she can do. The world taught her that, so she rests on her chair like a lizard in the sun, uneasy. When she tried to take action the world was against her, the people she thought loved her, against her. They struck down the dragon, pierced her heart with a dagger, so Daenerys hid away as a lizard, small and scared.

At least the heat is an old friend to her. She feels comfortable in her white sundress, more so than in the long coats she had to wear in the English winter. There is something familiar and funny about seeing Grey and Jorah in flip flops that makes her heart ache for times long gone, even though she is content there, despite the grim thoughts of red and grey that cross her mind.

She is drinking the strong caipirinha on the beach, the sand as white as her hair. Missandei makes faces as the drink burns her throat and locals laugh, loud and brash. Daenerys isn’t bothered by them; a long time ago, while she still had wildfire in her veins, she was loud and brash and stubborn and courageous too. She feels again like the child she had been, lost in a big, uncaring world, but her hand is held tight in Jorah’s strong ones and she doesn’t pull away when he brings it to his lips.

_“Oh, Jorah, you stubborn, stubborn thing.”_ She thinks, trying to keep her tears at bay. _“I’ve given you nothing but pain, yet here you stand, trying to take mine away too. I’ll be the end of you, my bear.”_

He reads her mind. He always does, so he smiles, a sad smile with his blue eyes closed and her hand to his mouth. She has destroyed him so many times, but he’s always there... Maybe she’ll tell him she wants to build something with him. Maybe she’ll do it tonight as the clock strikes twelve and the New Year is upon them.

* * *

Loud explosions and merry cheers surround Daenerys. Someone wishes her a happy new year in Portuguese, and she smiles. The relieving thought comes to her abruptly, interrupting her previous melancholy state: nothing really matters, except the cold sand under her feet, the breeze, the colourful light, the noise and Jorah’s steadying arm around her shoulders. _“So this is freedom.”_ Even from behind closed eyelids she can see the light of the fireworks. It is not the fireworks that bring her out of her content haze, but Missandei’s shrill voice.

“Grey, put me down! Come on!” Daenerys opens her eyes to see Missandei slung over Grey’s shoulder, trying to conceal her amusement as he carries her over to the sea. She is too far away to catch Grey’s reply, but Daenerys laughs earnestly for the first time in a while, feeling Jorah chuckle along with her.

“Well, you know what they say, Khaleesi: when in Rio, do as the Cariocas do.” Daenerys can hear the mirth in Jorah’s voice. Her old nickname warms her core and she shares his smile. Only Jorah still calls her that. She received it when she only had eyes for the strong fighter Drogo, it was his name for her, but as time passed Daenerys found it only sounded pleasing in Jorah's gruff Scottish tones. It is his as much as it was Drogo's. Her heart, whatever was left of it, is his as well. Daenerys can only hope it is not too late. She can only pray that the fireworks will rewind time and give her what she denied herself for so long.

“I’m fairly sure that’s not how the saying goes— OH JORAH NOT YOU, TOO!” She exclaims as Jorah picks her up swiftly and follows Grey and Missandei.

Daenerys hides her face in his neck, whether to keep her embarrassment or her joy at bay she doesn’t know, but luckily enough they aren’t the only ones heading to the water. When the waves hit people’s feet, they jump; Daenerys counts seven joyful little jumps. Some jump for their water goddess, the orixa Yemanjá, some for Yemanjá in Catholic clothes, Nossa Senhora da Glória, some because tradition tells them to. Grey and Missandei jump maybe for the memory of a faith ingrained in their very skin, a faith they’d been denied for too long. Daenerys smiles. _“They share my freedom, or maybe I share theirs.”_ They once told her she helped free them from war and chaos, but she doubts it. They’re free on their own rights, freer than she is.

She never believed in any god or spirit. For many years, Daenerys Targaryen’s sole faith was in herself. The past years, however, the English winter that never welcomed her home, took her faith away from her and showed her fear and uncertainty, but the orange fireworks in the dark sky ignite once more a tiny spark inside her, her old courage returning slowly to her eyes. Tonight is a night of hope and rebirth, the night Daenerys will either rise from the ashes or be swept away by the sea.

She’s been fire, she’s seen blood. Daenerys always ran from the water, but she must not run now. The waves lick at their feet, washing their souls clean. His breath hitches and Jorah is as still as a marble statue when she presses her lips to his. He’s kissed her before, back when everything mattered too much and she couldn’t give him what he wanted. She kisses him now, when nothing else matters, but Jorah is frozen in place, his face, illuminated by the orange fireworks, betraying his anguish. He looks at her in his customary wonder, but beneath the surface, his slashed heart bleeds heavily. She can hear his gravelly voice echoing in her head, _“_ _Khaleesi... I love you. I have always loved you. Don’t do this to me.”_

Daenerys wants to bury her hands in the soft curls at the back of his head. She wants to weep. She wants to sail the oceans of time that separate this moment from the day he kissed her in her office and her traitorous mouth kissed him back, then lied to him and to herself that she couldn’t love him back. To the many times she took him for granted. She wants to punch herself bloody and to keep him from fleeing her touch, but she can’t; his arms slide from her and he hunches his shoulders in defeat. Jorah slips away from her grasp when all she wants is to hold on to him. The fireworks and the sand, the offerings in the sea, the strange language; all white noise in the back of her head. She isn’t there in Copacabana, she is drowning in her own regrets. It’s the tears and the sweat that wet her mouth, not her saliva. Her mouth is parched and bitter. She is disintegrating in the waves.

“I’ve always loved you,” she rasps in defeat, her words leaving her throat like a wanderer in the desert, “I loved you in my strange, unsatisfying, incomplete way since I’ve met you. I loved you when I couldn’t, shouldn’t love you, when I loved another, I've always loved you, Jorah. And you loved me completely and I was never satisfied and I... I... I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, my Jorah, my... I... Sorry...”

Daenerys never finishes her sentence. Her crestfallen face is lifted slowly, tenderly, and her cloudy eyes see the yellows and reds painting Jorah’s cheekbones. Then she sees all the colours behind her closed eyelids. He kisses her so softly, it’s barely a kiss. A faint brush, a tropical breeze, a New Year’s resolution. Fireworks, electrifying her skin with his lips. Two more pairs of arms around her, Missy’s hair brushes her face and Grey’s thin lips touch her temple. Her friends exchange words between them, hesitant and sweet and affectionate. She always thought she wanted English _love_ , but she hears _Amor_ instead and she feels _Amor_ and she disagrees with every Portuguese dictionary she’s ever found. _Amor_ is not a masculine, singular abstract noun. _Amor_ is Grey’s rare laugh and Missy’s soft perfume invading her nostrils. _Amor_ is Jorah’s kiss and his familiar face. She smiles, reborn. _Amor_ is them and _Amor_ is her, the two syllables in her tongue, her two eyes glancing around. _Amor_ is here. _Amor_ is now. _Amor_ is forever. Happy New Year, Daenerys. _Nós amamos você_.

**Author's Note:**

> It was a conscious decision not to translate what little Portuguese I used in this, especially since Google Translate (or just regular Google for the religious figures mentioned) does the trick quite nicely in this case. I hope it wasn't a problem.


End file.
